


sucker for you

by dollyeo



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Minor Kim Mingyu/Xu Ming Hao | The8, Minor Lee Jihoon | Woozi/Wen Jun Hui | Jun, Misunderstandings, Or Is It?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-09 05:11:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19882195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollyeo/pseuds/dollyeo
Summary: Only two things are certain in life: death and taxes. Soonyoung plans on marrying rich so he doesn't have to worry about the second one that much. Wonwoo doesn't make it easy either way.





	sucker for you

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [sucker for you - art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19883788) by [fullson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullson/pseuds/fullson). 



> [you're welcome](https://open.spotify.com/track/5H9H0i7UCmRDCZRHldbmhN?si=iovzw0yNR_Sc-_uYinlA0Q).

He finds the ring in the laundry hamper.

At first, Soonyoung just stares at the box, unblinking, before cradling it in his palms and shaking it close to his ear to hear the contents rattle. There’s barely any noise coming from inside, so he figures it’s empty—he shrugs and shoves it into the pocket of his shorts to throw away when he passes a trash bin later.

He’s already done with the second load of dark clothing and drying the rest of the whites when Wonwoo pokes his head into the room, squinting at him with his bedhead sticking up in all sorts of directions. “Where’s—”

“Bedside drawer, right behind the lamp,” says Soonyoung, mostly unfazed. Wonwoo lets out a grunt of assent before trekking back to their bedroom, probably in search of his glasses. He’d fallen asleep with them still on, askew on the bridge of his nose when Soonyoung had found him this morning. He dragged Wonwoo into bed at seven in the morning, keyboard imprints on his cheek and all, and made a mental note to yell at Seungcheol for roping him into yet another game that robbed him of his boyfriend’s bony elbows and cold feet until Wonwoo’d gotten sick of it. It was easier to get him off of the obsession when they’d only been dating for a few months and Soonyoung had had the luxury of using the threat of cutting him off as a last-ditch resort. Now, whenever he’d threatened to break things off with Wonwoo, Wonwoo would just pat him on the cheek, patronizing as ever, and say, “But what about the kids?”

“This is all your fault,” he reproaches Yaongie, the stray Wonwoo had taken in a couple of years back. She’s curled up on top of the rumbling dryer with her eyes closed, mostly ignoring him, even though it’s him that fed her the choicest bits of tuna from his own lunch not even an hour ago. “You and your little sister.”

Yaongie doesn’t even respond to his grumbling, already at peace with her lot in life away from the kitten digging her claws into the fresh laundry. Soonyoung sighs and scoops up Nabi, bopping her on the nose before smushing his cheek against the top of her head. They’re a lot cuter than Wonwoo, for sure, and more useful to Soonyoung when it comes to doing chores. If nothing else, at least Nabi lets him pepper her with kisses as he waits for the timer to stop; it’s more than he can say about Wonwoo, who’s already making a ruckus in the other room.

“I think I lost something,” Wonwoo yells, and Soonyoung hefts Nabi up and over his shoulder as he walks out of the laundry room. Yaongie lifts her head a fraction to look at him, then jumps down from her cozy spot, following after him. He’ll have to sneak a snack out for her later, even if Wonwoo keeps complaining she’s gaining weight.

“Are you using your eyes and not your mouth?” Soonyoung teases.

“Ha ha, you sound just like my mother,” says Wonwoo, sounding cross.

“If you’re looking for the cats, they’re right here with me.”

“I know, I just saw them with you,” says Wonwoo. “I’m not as blind without glasses as you think I am, you know.”

“Could have fooled me,” says Soonyoung. He puts Nabi down and leans against the doorframe with his arms crossed, watching Wonwoo on his knees and peering under the bed. “What are you looking for?”

“It’s—” Wonwoo rummages around, and then huffs. “Nothing. I can look for it myself.”

“Suit yourself,” says Soonyoung, shrugging. “But if it’s porn, I demand to at least have equal viewing rights in this household.”

“It’s not porn,” says Wonwoo, exasperated.

“Too bad,” says Soonyoung. The timer dings, and he heads back to the laundry room to get the rest of their clothes out to hang.

Whatever it is Wonwoo’s looking for, he doesn’t find, if the way he’s glaring at the coffee maker is any indication of it when Soonyoung’s done with laundry duties. “No luck?” Soonyoung asks, rubbing his knuckles against Wonwoo’s nape to soothe him when he passes him in the kitchen.

Wonwoo sinks into his touch with a sigh, then catches him by the wrist to press a kiss to the base of his palm. “Better now,” he says, and a much younger Soonyoung would have swooned and felt his heart throb at that; older and wiser now, and Soonyoung just laughs, jerking his arm away to bop against Wonwoo’s forehead.

“You’ll find whatever it is you’re looking for soon,” says Soonyoung. “You always do.”

“I’m counting on Nabi to dig it up,” says Wonwoo, then he pales at the thought. “Oh god, what if she swallowed it by now?”

“Then you’ll find it in the litterbox or in her stomach, whichever it ends up in first,” says Soonyoung. “Personally, I’d rather go without a vet appointment, really.”

Wonwoo groans. “If it ends up in our cat, I’m going to freak out.”

“Is it toxic?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But it’s small?”

“Ye…s?” Wonwoo hedges.

“Is it edible?”

“It shouldn’t be.”

“Can she digest it?”

“I _hope_ not.”

“And you still won’t tell me what it is?”

“ _Never_ ,” Wonwoo insists.

Soonyoung squints at him, then looks at Nabi’s stomach. “Jeon Wonwoo,” he says, “if I have to find out from a doctor that our pet swallowed up a cock ring, I’m breaking up with you.”

“Why does it always have to be about sex with you?” Wonwoo splutters.

“I’ve had a dry spell since you’ve been playing games all night,” says Soonyoung, shrugging. “And you still haven’t confirmed or denied if it was a cock ring.”

Wonwoo licks his lips, eyes darting towards Soonyoung’s smug smirk and away. “It’s not a cock ring.”

“A butt plug then?”

“ _No_.”

“Well, let’s hope you find whatever it is soon. The apartment’s tiny enough and you’ve got a day off tomorrow, at least,” Soonyoung consoles him.

“Small mercies, then,” says Wonwoo, drily.

*

It’s only until later on when Soonyoung’s taking his shorts off to pee in the bathroom and the ring box falls out of his pocket that he realizes that, _wait, maybe this is what Wonwoo’s not telling me_.

And then he opens it and thinks, _oh shit_.

*

“So he’s planning on proposing to you and you just ruined the surprise,” says Seungkwan, drily, when Soonyoung reports everything in a frenzy when they meet for brunch the next weekend. “Congrats on suddenly getting hitched, hyung.”

“Are you gonna be a crazy groomzilla now?” Chan asks. “I can come with you for food tasting, but please don’t make me flirt with suppliers so you can get discounts on anything.”

“What? No!” Soonyoung blurts out, nearly spitting out his cola. “I’m _not_ marrying Wonwoo!”

“Oh, did you turn him down?” Seokmin looks crestfallen, like he can’t fathom the idea of Soonyoung being strong enough to say no. Well, Wonwoo’s never _asked_ , but if he did, Soonyoung feels insulted that Seokmin doesn’t give him enough credit to be a Strong, Independent Person that doesn’t cave at the first sign of Wonwoo’s wobbly lip and his tendency to be unable to look Soonyoung in the eye every time he’s genuinely disappointed. Then again, the last time _that_ had happened, Soonyoung ended up bottle-feeding Nabi for weeks. Maybe Seokmin’s onto something.

“There’s nothing to turn down,” Soonyoung argues. He starts fiddling with the ring box on the table, uneasy. “I haven’t told him I found it yet.”

“No wonder Mingyu-hyung was freaking out a couple of days ago,” says Seungkwan.

“ _Mingyu_ knows?”

“Wonwoo-hyung probably told him,” says Seungkwan, shrugging. “I couldn’t really catch what they were talking about on the phone, but Mingyu-hyung was practically frothing at the mouth. You know he lives for drama, that gossip whore.”

“Says the person who was eavesdropping,” says Chan, not quite under his breath, and Seungkwan cuffs him on the shoulder with a glare.

“You should really think long and hard about this, hyung,” says Seokmin. “If Wonwoo-hyung’s upset enough about it to go talk to _Mingyu_ —”

“The biggest blabbermouth _ever_ ,” Seungkwan supplies, unhelpfully.

“—Then that means he’s worried sick about this!” Seokmin continues, ignoring him. “And if you turn him down, you’re gonna have to break up and split the cats between you two!”

“Just because I’m not planning on marrying him anytime soon doesn’t mean we have to break up,” Soonyoung defends himself. “And anyway, _if_ we do break up, _I’m_ getting all the cats!”

“They love Wonwoo-hyung more,” Seungkwan points out.

“ _I_ clean their litter boxes and feed them every day, not him,” says Soonyoung, incredulously, flashbacks of Wonwoo doing nothing but play and let the cats nap on his laptop and keyboard as he games making his head pound. “ _I’m_ the responsible human being here!” Three pairs of eyes just stare at him, silence speaking volumes of judgment. “ _What_?”

“Don’t you think it’s a sign of maturity that Wonwoo-hyung’s thinking about setting his commitment to you in stone?” Chan argues, although he looks like he’d rather do anything _but_ talk about this.

“We can’t even get married here,” says Soonyoung. “What is he gonna do? Whisk me away right when I’m out of leaves just to get married in Taiwan or something?” He’s not _Junhui_ , thanks, even if it _did_ get Jihoon to crawl out of his work-cave long enough, lured more by the prospect of food instead of marriage. Whatever. Soonyoung’s not judging. (Much.)

“You can always have a winter wedding in Europe,” says Seokmin. “I hear it’s more romantic that way.”

“Or you could just get drunk and hitched in Vegas,” says Chan, bluntly. “It’s not too far from what really happened when you two met.”

“Very classy, just like them,” Seungkwan agrees.

“Doesn’t matter,” says Soonyoung, annoyed. “No one’s getting married.”

“Why _not_?”

 _Because it’s a lifetime commitment and I have yet to find myself a sugar daddy in the meantime_ , Soonyoung thinks of saying, but then Chan would probably argue with something stupid like, _but you’ve been saying that for years_ , so he keeps quiet.

Seokmin, meanwhile, takes his silence for genuine reflection (which, really, it’s _not_ ), and reaches over to pat his arm.

“Hyung, you’ve been together for seven years,” says Seokmin, patiently. “You’ve been living together for more than half of that. You have a joint bank account and listed each other as your emergency contacts in everything. _You have two cats together_. How are you _not_ convinced it’s time for you to get married?”

“We’re not Facebook official yet, so I’ve still got a chance to get out,” Soonyoung jokes, though it sounds weak even to his own ears.

“Clearly, romance is dead,” Seungkwan despairs.

“It would probably be easier to convince him to tie the knot if he gets a tax break,” says Chan.

“… _Can_ I get a tax deduction for it?”

“ _That’s_ your key takeaway from this?”

“It’s a valid question!”

Chan throws his hands up in the air, exasperated. “I don’t know,” he says. “Go ask Junhui-hyung!”

*

So he does.

*

“No,” Jihoon says, a hint of annoyance in his tone.

He’s barricading the door to his and Junhui’s home (“ _Love nest_ ,” Junhui had said conspiratorially shortly after they’d returned from their vacation last year with matching rings on their fingers and wedding photos on Junhui’s album bombarding Soonyoung’s feed.) in an effort to keep Soonyoung out, even after Soonyoung’s taken the time and effort to show up like a good guest bearing gifts of baked goods and milk tea.

Oh, and gourmet canned tuna for their pets, if the meowing coming from behind Jihoon is any sign of how welcome Soonyoung is from the rest of the apartment’s residents. If he strains his ears, he thinks he can hear Junhui meowing with them, too. At least Soonyoung feels love from _some_ of the members of the Lee-Wen household.

“Yes,” Soonyoung insists, poking Jihoon in the chest, but Jihoon’s stronger than he looks and fights dirty, kicking Soonyoung in the kneecaps back. “Oh come on! I even bought you an entire box of cake, you fucker!”

“Cake?” Junhui bellows from behind Jihoon, putting his chin on the top of Jihoon’s head as he backhugs him (read: holds him back from bodily maiming Soonyoung) and gives Soonyoung an impish grin. “Just in time for dinner, then. Let Soonyoung in, _lao po_.”

Soonyoung tunes them out as he stalks past a flustered Jihoon elbowing Junhui to greet the cats, Moon rubbing up against his ankles and butting her head against his extended palm. She’d always been so sweet and doting to Soonyoung ever since he’d gotten saddled with pet-sitting every time her owners weren’t around that he hadn’t needed much guilt-tripping from Wonwoo to take Nabi in when Moon had given birth just a couple of months ago, but he can’t say the same for Woozi, who’s already snooping around the plastic bag of food Soonyoung lays on the floor and barely giving him a moment’s notice. Really, he can feel the love.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” Jihoon asks, churlish even when they’re all seated for dinner ten minutes later. “Or some other people to bother?”

“It’s game night,” says Soonyoung, which, from Jihoon’s long-suffering eye-roll and glance at Junhui’s phone, is sufficient enough to relay the neglect wrought from their significant others’ hobbies. Jihoon’s learned to live with Junhui’s obsession with wallet-draining gacha games over time, but Soonyoung can’t say he’s still completely okay with Wonwoo’s non-committal, one-word responses as he focuses on his laptop screen with more fervor than he’s ever given Soonyoung. Yet another reason not to marry him, _clearly_ ; Soonyoung makes a mental note to write that down for posterity later on.

“Is that why he’s not returning anyone’s messages?” Junhui muses, ladling a spoonful of beef broth into a small bowl for Soonyoung. “Minghao says Mingyu’s riled up about it more than usual.”

“Must be something at work,” says Soonyoung, though from the knowing look Junhui gives him, he assumes they both know what’s really up.

“Or _something_ ,” Junhui agrees. Then, he leans in conspiratorially, “Minghao let it slip that he’d heard an argument about a ring, but you didn’t hear it from me.”

“Can’t ever keep a secret in this group,” Jihoon sighs, but Soonyoung thinks he has no room to talk. They’d all done an admirable job of not blurting out the _real_ purpose of Junhui dragging Jihoon away to a holiday out of town for _months_ , and all Jihoon had to say about it in the end was, _you’re all fuckers of the highest order_ in the group chat, ever the ingrate that he was. “If you ask me, I think it’s a terrible idea.”

“ _I_ think it’s romantic he’s finally thinking about settling down,” says Junhui. “They’re both adults in a loving, long-term relationship. It’s natural he’d want to get married.”

“They’re human disasters doing a terrible job at adulting,” says Jihoon, which, Soonyoung thinks, _ouch_? He’d left the house intact and ordered chicken for Wonwoo before leaving, never mind that he’d shoved the clothes from the bout of spontaneous morning sex under the bedside table instead of putting them in the laundry hamper. As if Jihoon has any room to judge, considering that he’s wearing nothing but Junhui’s shirt and the shortest pair of boxer-briefs known to man.

“Does no one care what _I_ think, then?” Soonyoung asks.

“Well, what do _you_ think?” Junhui humors him, but not before pinching the skin on Jihoon’s nape.

“We all know what Soonyoung thinks,” Jihoon snorts. “He’s probably betting on a winter wedding happening this year.”

“It’s already summer.”

“Never stopped them from making irrational decisions before.”

“It’s nice to hear you have such encouraging opinions about this hypothetical marriage,” says Soonyoung, and while Jihoon’s acerbic words aren’t too different from the ones Soonyoung’s turned over in his head, time and again, it still stings to hear them. “Either way, it’s not gonna happen anytime soon.” He fishes around his pockets, then puts it on the surface of the dining table. “I found the ring.”

“Wait, why do _you_ have the ring?” Junhui squawks.

“I found it while doing laundry,” says Soonyoung. “If I hadn’t checked, it would have been ruined in the wash.”

“So _that’s_ why Mingyu’s been acting off lately,” Jihoon huffs. “Whose bright idea was it to trust _Wonwoo_ with a ring, anyway?”

“Wonwoo hasn’t breathed a word about it,” says Soonyoung. “I’m waiting for him to _ask_ , but either he’s being stubborn or he’s deliberately keeping me in the dark.”

“Of course he’d keep quiet,” Jihoon scoffs. “He probably thinks _you’ll_ start going crazy with wedding fever if he did.”

“I can assure you, I’m _not_ gonna say yes to a proposal anytime soon,” says Soonyoung.

“Why not?” Junhui asks.

Soonyoung looks at the ring on the table. “I dunno,” says Soonyoung. “It just doesn’t feel like the right time.”

“Timing isn’t everything, you know,” says Junhui, looping an arm around Jihoon’s shoulders. “I thought I’d propose in Jiufen while Jihoon was letting his inner Spirited Away geek out, but I ended up asking him in our hotel room the night before our flight back.”

“Whatever happens, don’t say yes when you’re having sex and he’s balls-deep in you,” says Jihoon, even as he relaxes into Junhui’s touch. “Worst decision of my life.”

“Don’t you mean the best?” Junhui asks, but he looks more entertained than hurt.

“There’s no benefit to marriage,” Jihoon tells Soonyoung. “ _None_. After the honeymoon period, it’s over.”

“Don’t you at least get tax breaks?” Soonyoung hedges.

“What tax breaks?” Jihoon rolls his eyes. “Maybe if we moved somewhere else, then sure. Just stay roommates forever. It’s easier.”

“Ignore him, he gets sulky when he’s hungry,” says Junhui, stroking the base of Jihoon’s neck. “For what it’s worth, I’m happy I get to wake up to this face every morning.”

“You’re embarrassing and I hope Woozi pees in your sock drawer,” says Jihoon.

“I’ll just steal your socks and stretch them out then,” says Junhui.

Soonyoung shoves a spoonful of broth into his mouth, silent as he contemplates. He looks at Jihoon’s scowl, the flush of his skin belying the disdain in his expression; then he looks at Junhui, who’s taken to toying with the ends of Jihoon’s hair, bed-rumpled and probably unwashed. If this is what domesticity in marriage looks like, Soonyoung’s not sure if he wants it— he can’t imagine him and Wonwoo like that. Can’t.

*

Not like the way Soonyoung asked Wonwoo to move in together is any better, though.

What it should have been was Soonyoung coming up with a breakdown of expenses and a cost-benefit analysis for Wonwoo’s perusal. Unfortunately, Excel was crashing spectacularly the night he was cramming the proposal to Wonwoo, and he’d run out of whiteboard markers to write everything down.

Then again, the idea bubbled up at the back of his head when he’d been staying one too many late nights at the office, exhausted, out of his depth, and badly missing anyone who wasn’t a member of his team, up to and including his mom, his dad, his sister, his four year old niece, and his boyfriend, all in that order. While the rationalization process was, by nature, functional, it was human connection that spurred Soonyoung on into jumping headfirst in what was probably not a well-thought-out decision at the time.

Oh, and Wonwoo sexting him with dick pics, the fucker. He was only human.

What it eventually turned into is this: Soonyoung coming home to what he’d thought would be his empty apartment, only to find Wonwoo heating up takeaway with one of Soonyoung’s hoodies on and baggy shorts, looking sleep-rumpled and fatigued himself; he’d mustered up a smirk that morphed into a shy smile for Soonyoung, though, and said he just _had_ to make sure his boyfriend was still alive— “Wouldn’t want you dying in a ditch somewhere, right, Soonyoung-ah?” Wonwoo teased, and Soonyoung— he swears to god— promptly dropped his bag on the floor, caged Wonwoo against the kitchen counter and kissed him, fiercely, before going down on his knees and pulling his shorts down so he could suck Wonwoo’s dick.

“Never let me go without sex again for a week,” Soonyoung said when they’d come down from their high hours later, reduced to putty on Soonyoung’s couch.

Wonwoo laughed, brushing the soles of his feet against Soonyoung’s ankles. His calf. The inside of his thigh. Then he shoved Soonyoung’s wandering hands away and pushed himself off of the couch.

“Where are you going?” Soonyoung whined. “Come back and let me put my mouth on you some more!”

“As much as I’d love to indulge your kinks, I’ve got a train to catch,” said Wonwoo. He toed on his shoes, then hefted his backpack up over his shoulder. “It’s almost midnight, babe.”

“Just stay over,” said Soonyoung.

“I have work tomorrow.”

“My apartment’s closer.”

“I don’t have any clothes appropriate for work here.”

“You can borrow mine.”

“My ass would look flat in your pants.”

“They _are_ flat.” Wonwoo hit him with a throw pillow. “Ow!”

“There, there,” said Wonwoo, stroking the part of his forehead where he’d smacked him and pressing a kiss to it. “I’ll see you for dinner tomorrow.”

“This would be so much easier if you just moved in with me,” Soonyoung grumbled.

Wonwoo paused mid-stroke and raised an eyebrow. “Are you serious?”

Soonyoung looked at Wonwoo’s bony wrists, his rumpled clothes. He looped an arm around the curve of Wonwoo’s waist and pressed a kiss to his hipbone, fondly.

“When am I ever not?”

*

In retrospect, maybe he’s not much better than Jihoon about making life-altering decisions in bed. Soonyoung glares at Wonwoo’s sleep-rumpled head poking out of the blankets he’d hogged for himself, still cold despite layers of pajamas and Soonyoung’s thinly-veiled suggestions of warming him up with his body early on. Being a cock slut sucks.

*

Wonwoo doesn’t say anything about the ring, not even after Soonyoung slips it inside his side of the closet after a while. He waits for Wonwoo to say something—anything—even when Mingyu goes back to a semblance of semi-normalcy instead of the seemingly constant state of panic he’s been in ever since the ring got ‘conveniently misplaced’, but he doesn’t let it show. Not even when Soonyoung hints at it, he’s disturbingly unflappable. It’s annoying.

“Mingyu looks pretty happy these days,” says Soonyoung, pretending he’s scrolling through his feed for the first time. “I was getting pretty worried.”

“Hn,” says Wonwoo, fingers stilling above his keyboard before resuming once more after a few seconds. “You know how overdramatic he gets when he’s upset.”

“Did he ever tell you what it was that got him so worked up?”

“Not really,” Wonwoo lies. “I think it was just a misunderstanding, is all.”

“Hmm,” says Soonyoung, doing an admirable job at not blurting out _YOU’RE A LYING LIAR AND I KNOW EVERYTHING_ in the middle of reheating yesterday’s takeaway for dinner. “Hey, did you ever find whatever it was you were looking for the other day?”

Wonwoo turns around to look at him, expression blank, and Soonyoung’s struck, not for the first time, by how amazing he is at not giving too much of himself away, time and again. Only Wonwoo can look at him and make him feel like _he’s_ the one with a secret to hide, guilt crawling under his skin and nearly making him want to confess everything. It’s strange.

“Yeah,” he says, unfazed. “It was just in the pocket of my pants. Guess I should be happy it saved us a vet bill or two, huh?”

Fucktard, Soonyoung thinks, and then turns back to making sure he doesn’t burn the fried rice in the pan. It should be a relief Wonwoo’s purposely not bringing it up, right? At least it saves Soonyoung the awkwardness, the messy tears, and the potential drama of having to break up and split the cats up in the process. It’s better this way. It is.

Right?

*

“Okay, so why are you mad _now_?” Seungkwan asks, sighing as he lines up with Soonyoung at the nearest Caffe Bene to deal with Soonyoung’s emergency meltdown.

“Because he was _supposed_ to ask _me_ ,” Soonyoung says, outraged. “And _I_ was supposed to say no!”

He’d come up with a long list of pros and cons to marrying Wonwoo shortly after he’d talked with Junhui and Jihoon, writing discreetly in his unintelligible scrawl while Wonwoo yelled at Seungcheol over his mic in-game. He’d been ready to recite everything in the cons list in case he’d had to break Wonwoo’s heart in the process—really, he was! He’d kept that list alive for so long, it had been a mainstay more than their anniversaries or pictures together on SNS, a list he’d drawn up even before he’d agreed to date Wonwoo. It’s his life’s work, as much as Wonwoo’s level-grinded accounts on his MMORPGs are.

“Can I get your order, Sir?” The cashier meekly asks, looking at both of them warily after Soonyoung’s outburst.

“I’ll have an iced coffee—”

“He’ll have a cup of tea,” Seungkwan interrupts him, flashing a wide smile that barely masks his panic at the cashier. “And I’ll have an IV drip full of caffeine, thanks.”

When they’re seated in a corner and holding their drinks in hand, Seungkwan hands him a cookie as a consolation and pats his back.

“Cheer up, hyung,” says Seungkwan. “Maybe he chickened out. Or maybe he wanted to prepare for it some more. You know how drawn out and obsessed he gets about making plans.”

“Why would he need to make plans?” Soonyoung despairs. “That would just make me feel bad when I finally tell him he’d be the last person I’d marry!”

“Wow, what kind of movies have _you_ been watching?” Seungkwan asks, eyebrows raised. “I know you like to embellish stuff, but your script’s getting kinda out of hand.”

“Is it too much?” Soonyoung asks. “Should I just say I could never see myself growing old with him?”

“Dial it down a bit more,” says Seungkwan. “I’d rather keep our group chat alive than awkwardly dismembered.”

“I don’t know,” says Soonyoung, sighing. “I feel like I don’t know him enough to be prepared to marry him. Thinking about it is just making my head hurt.”

“He knows all your passwords and ID numbers like the back of his hand,” says Seungkwan. “What else does he need to know about you? Your _bowel movements_?”

“Don’t be gross,” says Soonyoung, even as he manages to bite back the retort that Wonwoo knows his stomach issues more than Soonyoung subconsciously does, always ready to steer him back to their apartment when Soonyoung starts looking antsy and upset while they’re dining out. That… would most definitely be counterproductive to his case.

He looks at his cookie, then glumly breaks it apart. “Do you know what color the stone on the ring was?”

“I dunno,” says Seungkwan. “Red?”

“It was green,” says Soonyoung.

“Green?” Seungkwan asks, brows knitted together. “What’s wrong with green?”

“Nothing,” says Soonyoung. “But it’s not— I don’t even care for green much. Why would he get me a ring in that color?”

“Maybe it means something to him?” Seungkwan asks. “You know how he is. You probably mentioned something offhand once and then he ran away with it.”

“Yeah, but that’s even scarier,” says Soonyoung. “What if he only remembers the things I don’t mean anything by? What if it just means he doesn’t know me at all?”

“Stop that!” Seungkwan smacks him at the back of his head, then shields his hands up over his face automatically as Soonyoung’s shock transforms into indignation. “Hyung, I swear, you’re overthinking this too much! You can hit me back, but if you just take a deep breath and think about this, you’re gonna realize you’ve gone off the deep end and you need to get pulled back to reality!”

Soonyoung puts his raised fist down, then looks at his tea. Seungkwan cautiously lowers his arms, but still shields his chest just in case Soonyoung thinks better of it.

“Listen to me,” says Seungkwan, voice turning soft. “Wonwoo-hyung loves you a lot. God only knows why, but he’s been crazy about you since you showed him the elephant moles on your arm instead of picking him up when you guys met. Don’t you think he deserves a bit more credit than that?”

Soonyoung swirls his cup around, watching the teabag flop back and forth. He’d met Wonwoo when they were in a college mixer, two people that would never have talked to each other if Soonyoung hadn’t arrived late and Wonwoo hadn’t scared off everyone else trying to talk to him with his one-word answers. Soonyoung had thought he was handsome but intimidating, but he’d worked up his nerve with alcohol and blind recklessness, and by the third hour they’d been drunkenly singing a terribly off-key duet in front of the noraebang machine.

By half-past midnight, Soonyoung was walking Wonwoo home. By one AM, Wonwoo was inviting him in for coffee, pulling him close by his belt loops. By one-o-five, he’d kissed him in the hallway, slow and deep and open-mouthed. By two, they’d gone through all the condoms in Wonwoo’s (admittedly slim) inventory, and they’d moved on to clumsy fumbling and awkward, unpracticed blowjobs in the dark instead.

When he’d walked out of Wonwoo’s apartment by six, he hadn’t expected he’d be back ever again. Funny how life works out.

“I guess,” he says, biting his lip. He looks at Seungkwan helplessly, feeling like he’s twenty-two years old again and out of his depth trying to come to terms with his first walk of shame. “Am I gonna be a bad person if I still say no if he tries to propose, though?”

“I can’t answer that for you, hyung,” says Seungkwan, patting his arm. “Maybe that’s not the question you should be asking yourself, if the only thing holding you back is because you feel guilty.”

“I’m not a bad person,” says Soonyoung, mulishly. “I’m _not_.”

“No one’s saying you are.”

“So why does it feel like everyone’s making it out to be _my_ fault even before it’s even happened?”

“Let me ask you this, then,” says Seungkwan. “And don’t even give yourself time to think about it—just say whatever’s in your mind when I ask you stuff.”

“Okay.”

“Do you love Wonwoo-hyung?”

He doesn’t even have to think about it. “I do.”

“And are you happy with him right now?”

“I guess.”

“But do you want to marry him now?”

He licks his lips, taking a moment to think, and steeples his fingers under his chin. “No.”

“What about ten years from now?”

He stays quiet.

“If you’re not ready, then you’re not ready,” says Seungkwan, matter-of-fact. “I know we’ve been giving you a hard time about it, but I’ll try to get everyone else to back off, okay? And if Wonwoo-hyung finally asks you and you break his heart, I’ll be here to kick your ass and ply you with enough tissue while you cry.”

“I’m hoping we’re not gonna get to that point,” says Soonyoung, nervously.

“So am I,” says Seungkwan, grimly. “But knowing your luck, I’m gonna stock up soon. Remind me to get my grocery list sorted out tonight.”

*

Lucky for Seungkwan, Soonyoung doesn’t raid his home for consolation tissue any time soon. Instead, Soonyoung takes out his list from its Very Secret hiding spot— a frayed notebook from his uni days that Wonwoo’s expressly forbidden from opening on pain of death and the threat of sexual deprivation— and blows the dust off the covers with some trepidation and not a little sneezing and coughing involved.

(“You could always just type everything in your laptop or keep it safe with a password on your phone,” is what Wonwoo always tells him as he catches sight of Soonyoung huddled under the blankets and writing with a flashlight and an old-fashioned pen.

“You know all my passwords!”

“It’s a little hard not to, considering you’ve had the same password for years.”

“Shut up, Mister _I have ten thousand passwords and none of them are my boyfriend’s name_.”)

The notebook is just full of lists about Wonwoo that he’d started on a vague whim that eventually devolved into a full-blown obsession, much like his relationship with Wonwoo. They’re just harmless lists— lists about his family. His friends. His weird hobbies. His kinks.

The things he likes, the food he prefers. Gift ideas. Corny nicknames and pickup lines he hasn’t used yet. Things to spice up their (increasingly vanilla) sex life. Inane, deeply personal things that make him blanch at times when he’s not melting in a goo of feelings.

Lists of reasons why they should be together, when they’d been in the first flush of courtship; reasons why they should stay apart, at a particularly bad time. Reasons to move in, reasons not to. Reasons why he drives him crazy, why he makes him so mad.

Why he loves him. What makes him feel bad. Happy. Sad. Angry. Tired. Everything.

The very first list he’d drawn up, it had been a list of pros and cons why he should and shouldn’t say yes to seeing him again after that first night. He’d thought it over instead of doing an essay due the next day, right in the middle of Wonwoo’s apartment post-fuck while Wonwoo slept under a mountain of blankets and Soonyoung tried to rationalize what, exactly, he was doing at that point.

> **WHY I SHOULD SLEEP WITH WONWOO AGAIN:**
> 
> • Handsome. ( ~~Not terrible to look at.~~ okay he’s fucking sexier than anyone I’ve met, shut up.)  
>  • Has his own apartment. (Possibly rich???)

And then, even less succinctly:

> **WHY I SHOULD BLOCK HIS NUMBER AND PRETEND I LOST MY PHONE:**
> 
> • Not very good at sex. (maybe he’ll improve???)  
>  • He’s terrible at small talk. I had to get him to suck my dick to stop everything from being awkward.  
>  • Money comes from his parents, but his bank account is nearly dead considering _I_ had to pay for the cab ride and dinner, _and_ he’s got nothing but instant food in his pantry.  
>  • Can’t feed me wine, caviar and chocolate strawberries from room service after taking me out to a whirlwind sexcapade, WHY AM I EATING RAMYEON _I_ COOKED AFTER BAD (fine, barely passable) SEX INSTEAD???  
>  • He didn’t even _cook_ the noodles. This is terrible. What if he’s looking for a slave instead of a boyfriend?  
>  • Are we even boyfriends? Oh god, what if we’re just fuck buddies. Am I gonna get my heart broken by a fuckboy I haven’t even exchanged more than bad pickup lines with???  
>  • I AM GOING TO FAIL THIS ESSAY AND IT IS ALL HIS FAULT.  
>  • The sex isn’t worth it. Really, it’s not.

Then he’d gone back to the first list and realized he couldn’t add anything more to it. At that time, in Wonwoo’s apartment that smelled of sex and sweat, he couldn’t imagine anything beyond a series of walks of shame, of regrets and stupid decisions, a time to experience all the messy parts of life that he could chalk up as a learning experience eventually and look back on with nostalgia when he’d be vacationing in Aruba or the Bahamas with his hypothetical six-figure-earning flavor of the week. He’d had it all planned and mapped out in his life as a passing thing and nothing else.

Now, it just smells like cat food, takeaway boxes and last night’s pizza heating up in the microwave, his bank account slowly drained of rent, food and cat-related expenses that are far more expensive than his day-to-day needs combined. This is not how Soonyoung had envisioned his life to go _at all_.

“Should have gone with a sugar daddy,” he grumbles as he puts cat food in two separate bowls, two hungry cats yowling and crowding around his feet the entire time.

“What was that?” Wonwoo asks, sounding distracted as he boils instant noodles for dinner.

“Nothing,” says Soonyoung, and resists the urge to throw a piece of cat food at Wonwoo.

He adds to the list: _still makes soggy noodles even after how many years of doing it_ as he inspects the noodles in the pot, but Wonwoo just puts more cheese in Soonyoung’s bowl, so it’s not too terrible. He’s lucky he’s cute.

*

The list is ever-growing, admittedly with the negatives longer with every inane thing Soonyoung finds annoying about living with Wonwoo. He barely takes out the trash. He hogs the bed and kicks Soonyoung in his sleep. He skips out on washing dishes or doing laundry if he can help it. He keeps forgetting the brands Soonyoung prefers and goes for his own choices even if he barely does the cleaning, so there's almost always a hefty stock of household staples hanging around under the sink or in the cupboards unless he pays a cleaning lady to do the rounds. The only redeeming factor is that he's handy around electronics, so Soonyoung can always yell at Wonwoo to fix the wires every time their TV acts up and just keeps showing a blue screen. And sometimes, he doesn't even bother to do it.

“I've already told you, just try turning it on and off again,” says Wonwoo, refusing to get up from his nest of blankets and pillows in bed. He's using Yaongie as an excuse this time, stroking her fuzzy chin as she sleeps on his hip. They're both terribly lazy.

“I did,” Soonyoung argues. “Something's wrong with the wires, I think.”

“Nabi probably played with them and unplugged something,” says Wonwoo.

“Can you at least check it out for a second? I'm gonna miss M Countdown!”

“Just match the same colors together! I’ve showed you how to do it hundreds of times!”

 _Well, I’ve shown you how to give great head hundreds of times, but that hasn’t been reciprocated, has it?_ He thinks of saying, but decides against it. Instead, he lets out a frustrated yell, turning on his heel and stalking back into the living room.

Behind him, he can hear Wonwoo stage-whispering to Yaongie about how _daddy's being a grump again, don't mind him_ , and Soonyoung squeezes his eyes shut and thinks of the rental deposit, the hassle of house-hunting, the embarrassing fact that _he'd_ been the one to ask Wonwoo to finally move in together and split the rent properly, before steeling himself and resolving to tackle the TV issue without biting Wonwoo's head off.

“Maybe I'll just bite his dick off next time,” Soonyoung mutters under his breath as he bends and looks behind the TV.

Nabi blinks at him from her cozy nook between the wall and the TV stand, still pawing at the wires. With a sigh, Soonyoung grabs her by the back of her neck and hefts her up in his palms to meet her (guiltless) eyes head-on.

“I'm definitely leaving you with him when we break up,” says Soonyoung.

Nabi just meows.

*

Predictably, he ends up missing the show.

He stews under the comforter that night, right after turning all the lights off and shutting the bedroom door in Wonwoo's face. Wonwoo doesn't come to bother him for at least half an hour, but when he does, he just leans against the doorframe, probably with his arms crossed over his chest. Nabi and Yaongie shuffle in after him, prowling around the room the way they usually do at night. He should have gotten a dog; at least it would have snuggled up against him the entire time.

“Is daddy still angry about his show?” Wonwoo muses aloud. “He didn't even say goodnight to the poor babies.”

“Don't call me daddy,” Soonyoung grouses, voice muffled from the comforter.

He can feel Wonwoo climbing up on the bed and yanking the comforter down until he has Soonyoung caged to his chest, his glasses digging painfully into Soonyoung's skin. “That's not what you said the other day,” he teases, voice low and full of laughter. Soonyoung's torn between punching him or kissing his smirk away.

He does neither, settling for glaring at Wonwoo and pulling the comforter back to cover his head. Wonwoo, undeterred, burrows under the comforter too until they're both pressed together, back to chest, bony knees and lanky arms and all.

“I'm still mad,” Soonyoung warns.

Wonwoo presses a dry kiss against his nape. His ear. His jaw. “I know.”

Soonyoung feels like he can't breathe, like if he does, he'd ruin the moment; he thinks of what Junhui had said about timing, of Jihoon's ominous warning of proposals in bed, and when Wonwoo carefully tips his head back to press their lips together, soft and deep, he wonders if he'd have the strength to not say yes, if Wonwoo asked him right now. If Wonwoo asked him of anything.

Thank god he doesn't, though. Soonyoung forgets about the anger, and the worrying, and the question, not when all he can see and feel is Wonwoo. Part of the reason he’d asked (begged) Wonwoo to move in with him, outside of rent and splitting expenses, was because it wasn’t such a bad thing, coming home to someone and letting them cuddle and fuck the shitty parts of your day away, even when they’d been the cause of it. And maybe he’d felt more for Wonwoo then, had felt ready enough to move to that step, and then it just. Stagnated. Settled into something that he couldn’t imagine changing.

It’s scary thinking about all the years that led up to this point. He doesn’t want to change anything.

*

Except maybe Wonwoo’s stamina and sexual appetite flaring up just before he has an early meeting the next day, he thinks, hands fisted around the comforter and muffling his screams into the pillows. The neighbors are going to _kill_ him.

*

He forgets about it for a while. Work takes over, his sleeping schedule gets fucked up a bit when he has to cram for an urgent project proposal, he gets passed up for a promotion in favor of a more tenured senior— shit happens. He whines about it to Wonwoo all week, and Wonwoo indulges him with stress-eating dates and fucking the stiffness out of his shoulders the next weekend until he’s a relaxed, happy ball of putty in Wonwoo’s arms again. Things get in the way, other things come up. It’s normal to forget.

And then he sees Mingyu and Minghao’s posts online about their engagement and he’s back to step one.

*

“I don't understand,” Soonyoung wails. “How did _Mingyu_ get proposed to before _me_?”

“If it helps, he was the one who did the proposing,” says Seokmin, stirring the contents of his mug. “Maybe your thing with Wonwoo-hyung gave him a wake-up call or something.”

“ _Please_ , he's been dreaming about getting hitched since forever,” Seungkwan scoffs. “If you ask me, it's a miracle Minghao-hyung didn't say no.”

“That's true,” says Seokmin.

Soonyoung balks at them both, appalled. “How come you guys are more supportive of Minghao than _me_? Saying no to Mingyu is like kicking a puppy!”

“Mingyu's an overgrown dog,” Seungkwan corrects him. “He'll live and he'll keep asking until he wears Minghao down. Rejecting Wonwoo-hyung, on the other hand, is like leaving a kitten in a box out of the rain, and then he'll just wallow in his feelings and never ask again until you're both old and gray and _dead_.”

“Except he hasn't asked yet,” says Soonyoung.

“Thank god for small mercies.”

Soonyoung elbows him. Seungkwan wheezes.

“I mean,” says Seungkwan, delicately, “maybe he's working up to it?”

“What if he's waiting for the right moment?” Seokmin asks, then he adds, awe-struck, “What if he asks you on your birthday?”

“Then Soonyoung-hyung will be celebrating the day of his birth alongside the day he ended a long-term relationship at the same time,” Seungkwan reminds him.

“Oh,” says Seokmin, visibly deflating. He pouts up at Soonyoung, lip wobbly and eyes shining. “Are you sure you won't change your mind?”

“I'm sure,” says Soonyoung, testily.

“That's what you said when you told me you weren't going to call Wonwoo-hyung back seven years ago, but look where you are now,” Seungkwan points out.

“You never know,” Seokmin adds. “The right moment could change your mind.”

“Birthday sex,” Seungkwan affirms, nodding.

“Oh my god,” says Soonyoung, “shut up.”

*

His birthday comes and goes. Wonwoo books them a trip to the beach and leaves the cats with Junhui and Jihoon. They gorge on crabs and shrimp and shaved ice the entire day, then hit the markets and buy souvenirs they could probably spend better on other things but defer in honor of Soonyoung growing older (and far from wiser). There's a local festival going on, so there's more people on the streets than usual, and they skip out on going out for the fireworks show in favor of Wonwoo eating him out and riding him until they're both a pile of shaking, sweaty limbs, panting into each other's mouth and skin as they make love.

Turning older is weird. Soonyoung had thought they'd outgrow this phase after college, that there'd come a point in his twenties that they'd just plateau and grow out of the romance. Inching closer to his thirties, and still he can't get enough of digging his thumbs into the grooves of Wonwoo's skin, of watching Wonwoo come apart and sag into his hold as Soonyoung fucks into him, slow and deep, unhurried.

“Soonyoung—” Wonwoo groans as Soonyoung hefts him up and onto his lap, bracing his arms around Soonyoung’s shoulders. He keeps his legs locked around the small of Soonyoung’s back, like he wants to trap him where they’re joined together forever, and Soonyoung wants to say something poetic and romantic about how beautiful Wonwoo looks, how his neck is a column of ivory and his eyes like pebbles shining like hidden gems underneath a pond, how his fingers are like birds that pluck and flutter against his touch, sensitized, but he can’t find the words. He’s never been as good at them as Wonwoo, so he just stares right back into Wonwoo’s eyes and thrusts up, harder, until Wonwoo’s eyes roll back in pleasure.

Release comes to Soonyoung slowly, intent on drawing it out. He doesn’t give Wonwoo the time to even think about anything except how it feels, skin to skin, keeping their mouths connected like breathing isn’t enough. He’s always wondered if this is how Wonwoo feels when he’s inside him, the soft, tight heat sucking him back in and coaxing him to never leave.

Sex, like a marriage, is a dance; unlike marriage, though, Soonyoung’s more confident at dancing, and from Wonwoo’s garbled words of his name, he’s sure he’s far better at sex too. It’s a good thing Wonwoo’s always been a quick learner, less mouthy as a student than as a partner, but still— it’s Soonyoung that surrenders into his warmth.

By half past one, the fireworks outside have stopped; the air smells like smoke and nature, creeping into their room with its wide-open windows, its flimsy curtains. Soonyoung comes for the last time that night with a shout, spilling inside Wonwoo raw, and Wonwoo takes him in his arms and strokes his shivering, overheated back as he keeps Soonyoung’s body bracketed between his spread legs.

“Happy birthday,” says Wonwoo, the words coming out like a lazy, self-satisfied purr as he holds him.

“It’s my birthday, not yours,” Soonyoung points out. He lets out a small snuffle, then buries his nose in the dip between Wonwoo’s neck and shoulder, breathing him in. “Why am I doing all the work?”

“Gotta keep those old bones healthy,” says Wonwoo. “Office workers lose muscle mass easily.”

“So you’re only with me for my muscles?”

“You don’t have them anymore.” Wonwoo pinches his side, then lets his palm snake down to cup Soonyoung’s ass. “All that sitting is making you sedentary.”

Seven years is a long time. Wonwoo’s seen him back when he was all baby fat, until he’d taken to going to the gym to build up and he’d shed the fat in his arms and cheeks from hours of working out. Wonwoo’s seen him grow out of that too, into the residual flab from one too many team dinners and alcohol, but Wonwoo still looks at him like he’s the sexiest person he knows, the most handsome, the most special, even if Soonyoung knows it’s a lie.

It’s Wonwoo that’s the sexiest, after all, he thinks as he feels Wonwoo grow hard again. Always, always, the best one, even as his mouth says otherwise.

“Says the scrawny one in this relationship,” Soonyoung whines, rutting up against Wonwoo’s thigh in a delicious burn. He’s half-hard but too tired to do anything else, content on teasing Wonwoo again with fingers circling his rim and tracing the come oozing out. Wonwoo lets out a sharp exhale, and Soonyoung smiles into the side of Wonwoo’s neck. “Come on, lazy bones, we gotta get you cleaned up in the shower.”

“Don’t wanna,” Wonwoo whines. He squeezes around Soonyoung’s fingers, bucking up and shoving back like he wants him deeper. “I wanna go again.”

“You’ll regret it in the morning,” Soonyoung says.

“I won’t,” Wonwoo promises, and pushes Soonyoung’s head down, down, down.

*

“What if he’s cheating on you?”

“He’s not cheating on me,” says Soonyoung, mid-chew on his rice ball. He’s over at his sister’s place helping her with spring cleaning out of the goodness of his heart, and now she’s repaying him with mediocre convenience store fare and questions about his long-term, _committed_ relationship (that she doesn’t _have_ , he thinks, savagely) in the middle of a break.

He’d dragged Wonwoo with him to help, but they’d run out of spare boxes so he’d volunteered to go out and get some more from their apartment. Maybe Soonyoung should have escaped with him early on— they should have left her to do all the heavy lifting alone.

“How do you really know for sure?” She muses, propping her feet up on his lap. “He’s been glued to his phone the whole time.”

“He’s playing Food Fantasy,” Soonyoung argues, as if that explains everything. Minkyung just looks at him like he’s grown a new head. “You know how obsessed he is with his games.”

“He could be on a dating app instead of gaming,” says Minkyung. “Or he could be messaging someone else right now.”

“Can we not talk about this with your daughter in the room?” Soonyoung begs, mortified.

“She’s busy watching Pororo,” says Minkyung, nodding at Haerim, who’s contentedly curled up on the couch with Minkyung’s iPad playing episodes on Netflix. “Right, Haerim-ah?”

Haerim grunts and rolls up on her side, ignoring them both. It reminds Soonyoung, strangely, of Wonwoo on his days off. No wonder Haerim likes it when he’s the one babysitting her instead of her real flesh-and-blood.

Or maybe it’s just because her mom’s _Minkyung_ , who’s too annoying and nosy for her own good. Soonyoung rolls his eyes at Minkyung’s expectant look, then wheezes when she kicks his side. “Jeeze, let it go! Wonwoo and I are _fine_.” Fantastic, even. They’d done nothing but eat, sleep and have sex for the entirety of his birthday weekend. _Everything_ is peachy.

“That’s what they all say in the beginning,” Minkyung warns. “But just wait until his phone gets a lock screen and he starts hiding things.”

Soonyoung thinks of the ring— _wherever_ it is. Then he thinks of how he’d spent the entirety of the vacation waiting for the pin to drop and Wonwoo to get down on one knee. Wonwoo _had_ gotten on his knees, only to suck a bruise into his hip and mouth at the base of his cock to coax him back to hardness again; instead of _marry me_ , he’d heard _fuck me, fuck me, fuck fuck_ fuck, again and again.

That shouldn’t mean anything bad. Should it?

“We’re okay,” Soonyoung repeats, more for himself than Minkyung’s benefit. “He’s not hiding anything.”

He thinks.

*

“Where are you going?” Wonwoo calls out sleepily, poking his head out from under the blankets as he squints up at Soonyoung.

“The gym,” Soonyoung grunts, taking a seat on the edge of the bed as he tugs on a pair of socks.

“The gym?” Wonwoo repeats, sounding skeptical. He reaches out to yank at the garter of Soonyoung’s shorts, then ducks his head when Soonyoung reaches back to swat him. “By yourself?”

“Nah, I’m meeting Seungcheol and Jihoon there.”

“I thought you stopped going after we’ve established that sex burns more calories for free?”

“That was when we were twenty-something and horny all the time,” says Soonyoung. “We’re not as young as you think we are, Wonwoo.”

“It’s all in the mind,” says Wonwoo, loftily.

“Tell that to my growing beer belly and non-existent abs.”

“I like your belly,” says Wonwoo. He snuggles against Soonyoung’s side like a lazy cat. “It’s great for napping on.”

“I want you to sleep _with_ me, not on me.”

“I sleep with you all the time!”

 _True, but you could always sleep with someone else_ , he thinks. Fucking Minkyung getting into his head. Now he can’t stop thinking about it.

“I’m working on getting that average up again,” he says instead, ruffling Wonwoo’s hair. “Besides, Seungcheol tells me the trainers are all hot.”

Wonwoo blinks at him owlishly, before scurrying closer and nuzzling at the front of Soonyoung’s shorts. Soonyoung’s torn between kicking him away or pulling him up for a heady kiss, but he just freezes up at the contact.

“We can get you up to speed right now,” says Wonwoo, voice pitched low, suggestive. His palm pushes his shirt up, making space for him to nip at the gap of skin that’s exposed to him. “You can ditch Seungcheol and all those hot trainers for me.”

The effect’s only ruined by Wonwoo promptly yawning without covering his mouth, and Soonyoung takes the chance to gently push Wonwoo back to his nest of pillows and blankets.

“Trust me, I’d love nothing more than to watch you undress me with your teeth,” says Soonyoung, when he finally gets his voice back, “but I’d rather not do all the work when you end up falling asleep on me, babe.”

“It’s still a workout,” Wonwoo grumbles. Soonyoung just bends to kiss the shell of his ear and tucks him in.

He’s out like a light by the time Soonyoung’s on his way out. Even when he’s getting late and Seungcheol’s spamming him with annoyed messages and missed calls, Soonyoung watches him from the doorway for a minute longer, hesitating.

He’s always been a little hard to leave.

*

Soonyoung’s going to die. He’s going to die, crushed under how many pounds of metal on a smelly gym mat with his sweat making his hair and clothes stick to his skin in a disgusting heap, and Seungcheol and Jihoon are going to nag at him on and on until they realize he’s successfully choked on his own vomit and spit _and then_ drag his corpse back to his boyfriend and their two cats.

He could be having lazy morning sex with Wonwoo at this moment, but instead he’s getting punished for his growing paranoia from Minkyung’s words. Why did he think going to the gym would be a good idea again? He hasn’t gone in _years_ , and his efforts are going to kill him _dead_.

“This is lame,” he hears Jihoon’s floaty, disembodied voice say in the distance. “Can we just bring him back down a few kilograms?”

“He’s not even up to ten,” Seungcheol despairs. “Come on, Soonyoung, if you can get to twenty, maybe you can think about wall sex again with Wonwoo someday!”

Soonyoung groans, then tries to get up. He fails and nearly cracks his head against the floor when he collapses.

“Gross,” says Jihoon, watching him dry-heave and gasp for air. “I’m gonna go find Junhui. Try not to pop a blood vessel, Soonyoung. We need to return you to Wonwoo in one piece.”

Half an hour later, Soonyoung’s still sprawled on the mat groaning, abandoned by his friends. He turns on his side, whimpering like he’s five years old again and fresh from falling repeatedly while trying to learn how to ride a bike, muscles sore all over.

He should have learned from all the years he’s spent trying to impress Wonwoo. He’d thought he’d mostly outgrown it and settled into ennui, but it looks like there will always be a tiny, insecure part of himself that still wants to grab at Wonwoo’s attention and make him look at him all the time even in the face of other distractions, real or imagined. It’s stupid.

Something icy and slimy touches his cheek, and he jerks back; it’s Seungcheol, peering down at him with a water bottle in his hands.

“You okay?” Seungcheol asks. “Think you can stand up without needing crutches?”

“I want a piggyback ride,” Soonyoung whimpers.

“Wonwoo can give you one when he gets here,” says Seungcheol. “I told him to take a car and drive your ass home.”

“I used to be able to do this without breaking a sweat,” says Soonyoung. “Now I can’t even do a fraction of my old workout. What happened to me?”

Seungcheol lets out a considering hum, plopping down on the floor beside Soonyoung. He watches Soonyoung weakly uncap the water bottle and guzzle down its contents greedily before speaking. “Well, first you started climbing up the ranks and spent longer hours at the office. Then you stopped being my gym buddy to have more time to spend with Wonwoo and started going on lots of food dates when you weren’t at home and your paygrade kept increasing. Then you became a cat dad, and the most exercise you do is playing with them and making sure they get out of trouble. Does that sum it up for you?”

“Wow,” says Soonyoung. “When did I get so boring?”

“Wonwoo would be hurt if he heard you say that.”

“Wonwoo’s the most boring person I know.”

“And yet you’re still with him,” says Seungcheol, shaking his head. “He must be doing something right.”

*

It’s true. Wonwoo shows up with ibuprofen and Salonpas and plasters two boxes’ worth of patches on Soonyoung’s back muscles, arms and legs, then gingerly hitches him up on his back even when Soonyoung’s got at least five kilograms on him. He tucks his cheek against Wonwoo’s broad back, the span of his shoulders; it’s easy to be fooled into thinking he’s reliable, like this.

“Did you know they have a pole-dancing class here?” Wonwoo muses when they pass by the bulletin board out in the front. “Maybe I could just leave you on a bench and sit in while you rest.”

Soonyoung scowls, balling his fingers up into a fist and pounding Wonwoo’s back. “Don’t be an idiot.”

“I could even be convinced into signing up if the instructor’s hot,” Wonwoo wheezes, sounding far too amused for his own good. “Then I’d be the one abandoning you at the apartment with a pair of hungry cats and getting SOS calls from our friends.”

“If you cheat on me, I’ll kill you,” Soonyoung mumbles.

“Stop worrying me so much then,” says Wonwoo. He turns his head to nose at Soonyoung’s forehead, then sighs. “Seungcheol almost gave me a heart attack when he said you were having a hard time breathing.”

Soonyoung falls quiet, annoyance turning into guilt. He’s not sure how or why he’s thought of doubting Wonwoo, really, not when he deposits him gently into the backseat and takes more care to drive slowly and avoid speed bumps; when Wonwoo opts to carry him out of the car with an arm under his legs and another supporting his back, he blames the fluttering of his stomach and the light-headedness on mortification and fatigue.

“I can walk,” he protests.

“I know you can,” says Wonwoo, soothing. He tucks Soonyoung closer until Soonyoung has no choice but put his hands on his chest to steady himself, and he smiles down at him softly, like Soonyoung’s one of their cats that he’s trying to indulge after pulling them out of a life-threatening situation. “But I want to do this for you.”

“I’m never going to the gym again,” Soonyoung promises, tucking his face in the crook between Wonwoo’s neck and shoulder.

“Not even if the trainers are hot?” Wonwoo asks.

“I hate you so much,” Soonyoung informs him.

“Maybe I should put a leash on you to keep you from straying,” Wonwoo teases. He hefts Soonyoung up to prop his back up on his arm, then grabs Soonyoung’s hand to press a kiss to his knuckles. “Or a ring, just so everyone can see you’re taken already.”

Soonyoung takes a sharp breath, frozen.

“A ring?” Soonyoung echoes, weakly.

“Yeah,” says Wonwoo. He looks down at Soonyoung, eyes dark, then presses him up against the car. He presses a kiss to Soonyoung’s lips, once, twice. Another kiss, deeper this time, like it’s taking all his energy not to give in, and Soonyoung thinks, _this is it. He’s going to ask me_ , all floaty and woozy and doped up on painkillers.

Then, more distressingly, he thinks, _HE’S GOING TO ASK ME IN A PARKING LOT, WITH THE SECURITY UNCLE TEN FEET AWAY FROM US AND SECURITY CAMERAS CAPTURING EVERYTHING IN SIGHT. ABORT. ABORT._

So of course Soonyoung does the only thing he can. He elbows Wonwoo’s stomach, making him yelp and drop him on the floor in surprise.

*

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Chan informs him when he visits him in the ER for nearly braining himself on the car park floor.

“I know,” says Soonyoung, despondently. Everything fucking hurts.

“At least it’s not a sex thing anymore,” says Jisoo, cheerfully, even as he waves a clipboard threateningly at Soonyoung. “Or is it?”

“It could have been,” Wonwoo mutters under his breath. He’s lucky he’s so far away from Soonyoung’s foot, or else Soonyoung would have kicked him.

“Can I get more painkillers please?” Soonyoung begs Jisoo.

“No ibuprofen for you until I’ve ruled out a concussion,” says Jisoo.

“Kill me,” Soonyoung bemoans.

*

Wonwoo waits on him hand and foot for a few days. Bossing him around is a great perk, being in constant pain and embarrassment not so much. He’s all for the foot rubs and the back massages, sure, but he draws a line at needing help with peeing like an _invalid_ (“Which you are,” Wonwoo argues as he pulls Soonyoung’s shorts down, much to his mortification) and being used as a stationary plaything courtesy of their cat babies. He’d imagined more fruit platters and sleep, not claw marks on his thighs, that’s for sure.

“I feel like I’m gonna die,” says Soonyoung, whimpering when Nabi bats at his cheek, cute little paws like threatening weapons with nails glinting under the fluorescent lights.

“If you die, I’m letting the cats sleep on your side of the bed,” Wonwoo informs him.

“You love the cats more than me,” Soonyoung accuses him.

Wonwoo laughs but doesn’t refute it. Bastard.

*

“No sign of a ring yet?” Seokmin asks with a disappointed frown when they all meet up the next week for lunch, once Soonyoung’s released from his misery.

“No ring,” Soonyoung affirms, inexplicably relieved and annoyed all at once.

“He’s bound to ask you _next time_ ,” Seokmin despairs.

“Preferably before we all _expire_ ,” says Seungkwan. They’ve created a sub-group chat where they track most of Wonwoo’s movements through other people in their friend group, and so far, no one’s mentioned anything about a ring except for Mingyu, who’s been completely unhelpful so far. If nothing else, Soonyoung’s glad this is offering them _some_ sort of amusement, even if it’s at his expense. Never mind that he’s far from entertained and crossing wary and paranoid territory by now, but whatever.

“He tried,” Soonyoung says. “I stopped it.”

“Chan told us about that, by the way,” says Jihoon. “That was hilarious to listen to.”

“I wasn’t gonna let him propose in a _parking lot_ ,” Soonyoung splutters.

“Weren’t you gonna reject him? Why does it matter where he even _asks_?”

“I was on medication,” says Soonyoung. “What if I mixed it up and accidentally said yes?”

“If you keep sabotaging everything, that ring will never see the light of day,” says Seungkwan.

“But the ring is just _there_ ,” Seokmin wails. “It exists! We all saw it!”

“Maybe he returned it already,” Jihoon finally offers, making a face at the burnt breadsticks on his plate.

“Why would he return a ring he bought?”

“Why don’t chickens fly? Why is a tomato a fruit? Why do I pay so much in taxes? Why would anyone want to marry Soonyoung?” Jihoon says. “Clearly, life’s mysteries are too great to be explained.”

“How are you and Junhui together again?” Soonyoung asks, bewildered.

“I could say the same for you and Wonwoo,” says Jihoon, bristling. “It’s a miracle you’ve been together as long as you have. I’m not surprised if Wonwoo’s been putting off asking you to marry him considering you’ve been acting so high and mighty about turning him down. I can’t _believe_ you’d rather get sent to the ER than let him propose to you.”

It’s a running joke between all of them, but for some reason, it just stings now; any other day, Soonyoung would have shrugged it off and laughed, but now he just feels like a blister’s been scratched open, rubbed raw. He frowns.

“I’m being _realistic_!” He defends himself.

“No, you’re acting entitled and spoiled,” says Jihoon. “There’s a difference.”

Seungkwan laughs nervously, cutting in. “I’m sure Wonwoo-hyung doesn’t think that—”

“Did you ever think for one second that maybe he wasn’t going to ask you?” Jihoon plows on, wrinkling his nose. “Just because you saw a ring and he started flirting with you doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. Wasn’t the reason you asked Wonwoo to move in with you all because you got impatient waiting for him to ask?”

Soonyoung feels his face turn hot, his ears flaming from anger. He nearly raises his fist but checks himself, clenching his jaw instead. It’s always the ones that know you longest that know best how to get under your skin. He hates it.

“Thanks for the unsolicited opinion,” says Soonyoung, standing up and pulling on his coat. “I’ll make sure to remind myself of that when Wonwoo and I break up and I die alone and loveless.”

“Soonyoung—” A flash of guilt crosses Jihoon’s face, but Soonyoung’s already shoving his chair back and stalking away.

If he leaves the bill to Jihoon, well— the jerk deserves it.

*

But still. He wonders.

*

Soonyoung sulks, and sulks, and sulks some more.

Wonwoo checks in on him when he’s sulking in the middle of a bath, still in his underwear even as the shower hits him full-force.

“Don’t use up all the hot water,” Wonwoo reminds him. Soonyoung grunts. “And don’t forget to rinse properly or you’ll get dandruff again.”

Soonyoung grunts again. Wonwoo sighs and starts pushing his sleeves up, then thinks better of it and strips down until he’s naked.

“We’re not having shower sex again,” Soonyoung says, just as Wonwoo crowds around him in the tiny space to reach for the shower handle and pump on the bottle of conditioner. “I’m not risking having to go to the ER and asking Jisoo-hyung to give me painkillers for my fractured hip.”

“I’m trying to clean you up and prevent you from drowning yourself in the shower, not sexing you up,” says Wonwoo. He lathers the conditioner up in his palms and starts attacking Soonyoung’s scalp, rubbing and digging his fingers none-too-gently into his hair.

Soonyoung whines and complains, but he stays pliant as Wonwoo gives him a bath, marginally easing out of his sulk. Wonwoo’s movements are clinical, purposeful, and he doesn’t do more than give Soonyoung’s ass a playful squeeze when Soonyoung balks at the prospect of Wonwoo sponging up his nether regions. He leaves Soonyoung alone to finish up, and from the rumble of the dryer and the fluffy towels in his arms, Soonyoung’s more than a little eager to get out of the shower and into Wonwoo’s arms.

“There,” says Wonwoo, when he’s finally done rubbing Soonyoung down. “Feel better now, you big baby?”

“Mmhm,” Soonyoung mumbles, drowsy now that he’s in nothing but at least three towels and Wonwoo feels warm and dry against his skin. Nabi’s asleep at his feet, Yaongie somewhere near Soonyoung’s hip. It’s a good thing he and Wonwoo are well past the stage of feeling shy around each other— he can’t muster the energy to even pull on a pair of briefs, not even when Wonwoo complains about Soonyoung killing the feeling in his legs and needing to go to the bathroom to pee.

Trust Wonwoo to lull him into a false sense of security, though. Wonwoo waits until he’s snuggled up against his chest and close to falling asleep before he opens his mouth, keeping his voice calm and soothing.

“I heard from Seungkwan you and Jihoon fought,” says Wonwoo. Soonyoung stiffens, but Wonwoo tightens his hold on him. “Something about taking a joke too far, I think.”

“Jihoon’s an opinionated asshole,” Soonyoung mutters.

“Well,” says Wonwoo, “you’ve been friends for a long time. It’s easy to forget to be sensitive when you’re comfortable around someone.”

“I guess,” says Soonyoung. He tucks his cheek against Wonwoo’s collarbones and waits until Wonwoo rests his chin on the top of Soonyoung’s head before he mumbles, “He said it’s a miracle we’ve lasted this long.”

“Oh?” Wonwoo asks. “Is that what he really thinks?”

Guilt seeps into Soonyoung’s stomach, simmering. “I might have made a comment about him and Junhui too.” Wonwoo snorts, and he bristles, but catches himself from blurting out the real context. “He might have made a joke about –“ He licks his lips, and finally musters courage when Wonwoo starts stroking his back. “About anyone wanting to be with me for the long haul.”

Wonwoo’s hand stills. “And do you think that’s true?”

He looks up at Wonwoo from under his lashes, miserably. “I don’t know,” he says. “Do you think I’m a hard person to love?”

Wonwoo looks at him, soft and relaxed, so different from the sharp angles, the foreboding presence he’d exuded the first time they’d met. If anyone had told Soonyoung they’d be like this back then, he wouldn’t have believed it. It’s the face he makes that makes Soonyoung feel lightheaded and out-of-depth, close to vomiting his feelings. If Wonwoo would ask him now, looking like this— Soonyoung would say yes. He’d say yes, again and again, bad life decisions and lost rings and all.

“I think choosing to love you is the easiest decision I’ve made every day,” says Wonwoo. He kisses him gently, once. Twice. “Now, get off my lap— I really need to pee, Soonyoung-ah.”

“If you really loved me, you’d hold it in while I’m in a vulnerable state,” Soonyoung yells at his retreating form. “It’s not too late for me to find a sugar daddy!”

“I’ll help you look for one online,” Wonwoo yells. “Maybe he can get a two for one deal!”

*

“And then I just kind of forgot to ask him if he still wanted to marry me because I was too busy trying not to climb him like a tree when he got back,” Soonyoung recaps to a long-suffering Jihoon over dinner with Junhui. Now that he and Jihoon have (awkwardly) made up (in true constipated fashion, without actually apologizing to each other’s faces), Soonyoung’s back to terrorizing them and resorting to getting a second opinion. It’s a vicious cycle. “I’ve been trying to get him to ‘fess up, but we’ve just been doing boring stuff like reminding each other about chores and the grocery list, so it’s been weird trying to find a good time to bring it up.”

“I’m glad your sex life is still thriving,” says Junhui, then elbows Jihoon. “Aren’t we, Jihoonie?”

Jihoon stares at him with dead eyes. “I guess.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you were the one to find the ring, though,” Junhui says, amicably, as he pours more chili flakes in his stew. “It would have been a disaster if it fell into the wrong hands.”

“Right,” says Soonyoung, not quite following but nodding nonetheless. He’s too busy staring, transfixed, at the dangerously red tinge Junhui’s bowl is turning into.

“It would have sucked for Minghao if his engagement ring got lost in the sink because Mingyu was irresponsible enough to trust Wonwoo with it,” Junhui continues, sounding completely unfazed. “I heard the ring cost Mingyu half a year’s savings!”

Soonyoung’s brain careens to a stop. Then it fizzles out. Splutters. “What?” He asks, just as Jihoon also spits his rice out with an unattractive _bluUuHh?_

“Mingyu’s ring? The one Minghao’s wearing on all his posts?” Junhui says, like they’re both slow. “The one Mingyu was freaking out over when Wonwoo misplaced it?” Soonyoung stares at him harder. “The ring _you_ found?”

“Wasn’t that _my_ ring?”

“No…?” Junhui says, but he sounds unsure about it as he trails off. “Mingyu’s been planning it for months. We even went ring-shopping with him for it. But then he got paranoid Minghao would find out and he asked around if someone to keep it for him…” Then, his eyes flash with understanding, guilt, and pity all at once. “Oh, Soonyoung, I’m sorry— I thought you knew.”

Soonyoung turns to Jihoon, furious. “Did _you_ know?”

“If I did, do you think I wouldn’t have laughed at you for it weeks ago?” Jihoon croaks out, clutching at his glass of water.

All at once, Soonyoung feels more humiliated and stupid than ever, even worse than the time Wonwoo tried to ask him up for coffee and he’d genuinely thought he was getting a drink instead of a proposition. He covers his face with his hands, skin prickling with heat.

“Excuse me while I go throw myself into the Han River,” Soonyoung mutters.

“Please don’t,” says Junhui, reaching out to hold his hand in consolation. “I have no idea how I’ll ever break it to Wonwoo why you won’t be able to pay your half of the rent anymore if you do.”

*

The problem is, he can’t get mad at Wonwoo about it. What is he going to do, say, _thanks for making me feel dumb and thinking you were gonna propose when you were just being a good friend_? Rationally, he knows _that’s_ a sure ticket to a breakup. Irrationally, he just wants to crawl into a hole and never show his face to anyone ever again.

He opens his Facebook account on the commute home and hovers over the Relationship status. Then he changes it from _It’s complicated_ to _In a relationship_ , taking pains to tag Wonwoo.

He goes to the mall to watch a movie. He circles the shops and finds something to eat for dinner. He waits, and waits, and waits. Nothing.

 _HE’S NOT SAYING ANYTHING ON FACEBOOK_ , Soonyoung despairs at the secret group chat.

 _maybe he doesn’t use facebook anymore???_ says Seokmin, ever the optimimist.

Seungkwan sends them a screenshot of Wonwoo’s mother’s post half an hour ago, complete with Wonwoo liking the post. _sorry hyung :(_ , he says, and Soonyoung’s desires to throw himself into the river come roaring back in full force.

Seven years. Love really is dead.

*

He ends up hiding under the comforter _again_ , locking himself in despite the cats yowling for food and attention. It’s how Wonwoo finds him later on when he gets home from dinner with his parents, jiggling the doorknob with a curse and knocking on the bedroom door while calling for Soonyoung’s name, only to get no answer.

When he finally finds the key to their room, he barges in with a scowl, only for it to melt into something like worry, his face comically freezing up in a deer-in-the-headlights way. “Soonyoung, what’s wrong?” He asks tentatively, and Soonyoung rubs at his face, snot and tears and all, before hiccupping.

“Nothing,” says Soonyoung— wails it, more like, as Wonwoo gingerly takes a seat beside him and touches his back. “it’s just—” Another sob, and Wonwoo pinches his nose with a tissue. “Wonwoo, you’re dating the dumbest loser in the world, you know that, right?”

“Have you been talking to your sister again?” Wonwoo asks, still confused.

“Shut up and let me cry over my feelings,” says Soonyoung.

Wonwoo, to his credit, does exactly that, and makes him tea and pets his hair until he falls asleep. His eyes still sting long after he’s dried up with tears, and his cheeks are starting to lose all sense of feeling from being smushed up against Wonwoo’s thigh for hours, but he’s numbed by one thing, and one thing only:

He’s not marrying Wonwoo. He’s not.

And he’s going to have to be okay with that.

*

“If you’re gonna help me out with this, the least you can do is not look like you’re gonna lash out like a grumpy teenager at every possible supplier, you know.”

Minghao says this with deceptive calm on his face as they browse the wares of a wedding caterer at a bridal fair, but he sounds annoyed by now, like the only thing holding him back from murder is the plethora of witnesses in the event hall. Soonyoung can’t believe he’d even had the gall to ask Soonyoung to come with him even after breaking out into peals of laughter when Junhui had explained the mess to him, but this is probably Minghao’s twisted idea of revenge for parading around his engagement ring and casting doubt over the sincerity of the person who’d gone shopping for it.

In Soonyoung’s defense, this was before he’d actually known it was Mingyu that bought it with the blood, sweat and tears of his bank account, but still. Minghao’s a bitch like that.

“I’m being held captive against my will,” says Soonyoung. “You can’t blame me for not being cooperative.”

“I didn’t _ask_ you to come with me,” says Minghao. He inspects a piece of fabric on display, holding it up against the light. “If anything, I’m being punished with babysitting _you_.”

“You could have at least let me stay in the food section,” says Soonyoung. “Picking out fabric is boring.”

“I went furniture shopping with you when you were about to move in with Wonwoo-hyung and you didn’t hear me complain about you testing out the springs in the bedroom section,” says Minghao, unfazed. “You owe _me_ for helping you pick out that bed you thankfully haven’t broken yet.”

“You’re not even getting married in Korea,” Soonyoung wails.

“I’m canvassing,” Minghao retorts. “What if it ends up being cheaper here than overseas?”

Soonyoung looks at the zeros tacked on at the end of the price tags with raised eyebrows, unconvinced. He highly doubts that.

Minghao finally takes pity on him after what feels like an eternity of walking around and how many business cards later, letting him rest his feet in a restaurant ten minutes away from the event hall. The menu is full of words in French Soonyoung can’t even decipher, but he just points at the most expensive items that he can get away with on Minghao’s tab and greedily devours even the garnish on their plates.

“Do I really have to ask why you’re stress-eating again?” Minghao sighs, scraping the remains of the cheese fondue off of his plate and feeding it to Soonyoung. “Is there something wrong at home?”

“Nabi figured out how to open doorknobs for the first time last night,” says Soonyoung. “And I think Yaongie’s been attacking the houseplants, but I can’t be too sure.”

“Let me rephrase,” says Minghao, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What’s wrong with you and Wonwoo-hyung?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” says Soonyoung, mechanically. “We’re fine. Happy. Perfectly peachy.” He stabs a grape on their fruit and cheese platter viciously with a fork. “What makes you think something’s the matter?”

“I don’t know,” says Minghao, making a humming sound at the back of his throat. “Maybe because you hijacked my ring and thought your boyfriend was gonna ask you to marry him?”

Soonyoung spits out his drink. “We promised never to talk about that ever again.”

“I think Seokmin was planning on putting it into his best man speech, but we talked him out of it,” says Minghao. “I refuse to put up with anyone else’s problems on _my_ wedding day.”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” says Soonyoung, snidely. “I’ll make sure to let you know in advance if I have another crisis of confidence.”

“At least let me know if I need to switch around the seating assignments three days in advance,” says Minghao, but his amusement turns into concern at the way Soonyoung sinks into his seat, morose. “Have you talked to him about it yet?”

“No way,” says Soonyoung. “He can never know about this! What if we break up?”

“I thought you were ready to break up in case you needed to reject his non-existent proposal?”

“That was when I thought Wonwoo was being a reckless dumbass, until I realized _I_ was being the reckless dumbass.”

“It’s really not as bad as you think it is. It’ll be a funny story for when you finally tie the knot, I promise.”

“ _If_ we ever tie the knot,” says Soonyoung, glumly. “Seeing as Wonwoo will never _ask_.”

“Why don’t you do the asking, then?”

“There’s no point if _I_ propose.”

“Why would it matter who’s doing the proposing?” Minghao asks. “You’re both getting married, not negotiating a business contract.”

“ _Because_ ,” Soonyoung huffs, crossing his arms over his chest, “I’ve been doing the asking all the time.”

“So?” Minghao asks, brows knitted together. “I didn’t realize relationship milestones were a competition now. You’re _together_ , not enemies on a battlefield.”

“ _So_?” Soonyoung splutters. “What if he’s just been going along with whatever I ask because it’s easy? What if he doesn’t know how to say no? What if— what if—” His face falls, just as his shoulders droop. “What if he realizes he can do better than an annoying idiot like me and he doesn’t really love me?”

“In the first place, I can assure you living with you is far from easy,” says Minghao. “Trust me. I’ve been your roommate before. Six months is enough.”

He picks up a slice of cheese, then primly pops it into his mouth. “Second, if Wonwoo-hyung didn’t know how to say no, then you wouldn’t be keeping a pair of cats in your apartment even after you’ve put your foot down _repeatedly_ , now would you?

“And third,” he continues, placing his fork at the side of his plate. “You _are_ annoying, and you _are_ an idiot, and he can _definitely_ do better—” Minghao shuts his squawking up with a grape to his mouth. “— But god only knows why he looks at you like the sun shines out of your ass and you’re god’s greatest gift to this world even though Jolin Tsai exists.”

“… You mean Mingyu, right?” Soonyoung says. “Kim Mingyu? Your fiancé?”

“No, I mean Jolin Tsai,” says Minghao, not even batting an eyelash.

“This is _not_ convincing me that marriage isn’t a terrible idea,” says Soonyoung, despairing. “How are _you_ the one getting married again?”

“It’s a trap,” says Minghao, propping his chin up on his palm. “Now Mingyu will never be able to get away from my clutches.”

“That sounds eerily like something Mingyu would probably say about you too.”

“I’m quoting him word for word,” says Minghao. “I’m not too bothered. I can always get him to sign a pre-nup.”

“But would you?”

“Maybe not.” Minghao shrugs. “I’ll just tease him about it to make him squirm some more.”

“Poor Mingyu. What on earth does he even see in you?”

“Must be my sparkling wit and keen sensitivity,” says Minghao, drily. He taps on the table, and Soonyoung’s drawn to the glimmer of his ring under the restaurant’s bright lights. It would have filled Soonyoung with envy days ago, but now he just feels a pang of longing, leaving him unsettled. “But seriously. If he _does_ ask— if he _ever_ asks—” Minghao looks at him, straight in the eye. “Are you sure you’re still going to say no?”

*

He comes home that night to a napping trio of fluffballs, and he squeezes his way into the bed to snuggle up against Wonwoo. Yaongie looks at him, annoyed, before flicking her tail in his face and settling down on the pillow above Wonwoo’s head, but Nabi just lifts her head to peer at Soonyoung and lays back down on Wonwoo’s chest, perfectly content and taking up Soonyoung’s territory with ease.

He stays up watching Wonwoo sleep, too high-strung from all the caffeine and sugar-laced samples from the fair, and thinks about how many years he’s spent trying to take in every part of Wonwoo’s face and etch it in his mind— there’s always something new to discover, a tiny mole, a stress-induced breakout, a fresh wound from one of the cats. He knows this face like the back of his hand, though, knows it more than he knows his own mother’s, at this point. It’s the longest relationship he’s ever had, the only one he’s ever been in, and it’s scary.

If Soonyoung thinks about it— really and truly thinks about it— he shouldn’t have been as disappointed as he is, not when Wonwoo’s never really been the proactive one in their relationship. Outside of the tentative touches and come-ons that Soonyoung has difficulty reading between the lines sometimes, Soonyoung can’t remember a time Wonwoo had been the one to take the initiative first.

Their first kiss, it had been Soonyoung who tipped his head up and surged forward to meet Wonwoo’s mouth. The first song they’d ever sung together, Soonyoung keyed in with nervous, sweaty fingers, right before he’d shoved a microphone into Wonwoo’s surprised (and slightly more sober) hands. Their first conversation, Soonyoung had turned to him and tried not to feel small in the face of Wonwoo’s stony expression, right after a series of painfully awkward attempts from other people at flirting. The first time they’d even looked at each other, and it was Soonyoung that offered a hesitant smile that Wonwoo hadn’t returned, averting his eyes instead.

It just feels like it’s Soonyoung that’s always barreling head-on without a thought, and everything that’s followed is a series of happy coincidences that Wonwoo just went with at the time, coasting along with the waves and crashes of Soonyoung’s impulsive tendencies. Strange that the rare occasions he listens to caution and reason, he gets it all wrong.

He’s just bad at this whole being in love thing, he guesses; he’s almost as terrible at it as he is at being an adult.

*

“Soonyoung, why have I been receiving concerned reports from IT that you’ve been googling _how to be a sugar baby_ during work hours?” Seungcheol asks him the next day, exasperated. “Is this some weird sex thing you and Wonwoo are up to? You’re too old to be a sugar baby, you know.”

“Who’s Wonwoo,” says Soonyoung, woodenly biting into a sandwich. “I don’t know a Wonwoo.” He aggressively bites down harder at a stubborn piece of beef. “And it’s never too late to keep my options open!”

Seungcheol crosses his arms, then sighs. “Seungkwan told me about that meltdown you had about Facebook. I thought Wonwoo already confirmed it last night?”

“Dunno, don’t care,” says Soonyoung, still in the throes of mind-numbing wallowing. It’s a step up from all the sulking he’s been doing, even if it _does_ make Nabi and Yaongie more on edge and Wonwoo more concerned lately. Good. It’s his fault anyway, even if he doesn’t know it. Soonyoung’s going to wallow for a year before he gets over it.

Or maybe months. A few days. He’s got a very short attention span and Wonwoo’s birthday is coming up.

“Fine. Suit yourself. But I’m pulling you out of the pitch— it’s bad enough you’re distracted, I can’t have you moping in front of a client.”

“What? No!” Soonyoung’s head shoots up in alarm. “You _have_ to give me this project!”

“I _have_ to make you go on leave to get your head out of your ass,” says Seungcheol. “Go on a date with Wonwoo or something. See a relationship counsellor. Cuddle with your cats. Or just go the old-fashioned way and fuck it out, I don’t care.”

“I’m doing it whether you like it or not,” says Soonyoung.

“I’m telling your boyfriend you’re using work as an excuse to get out of talking about your relationship problems,” Seungcheol threatens.

“I regret ever letting you two meet and become gaming buddies,” Soonyoung yells at his retreating form.

Seungcheol just slaps a leave form on his desk and waves him away.

*

Wonwoo’s waiting for him at the lobby by the time he clocks out, shivering in the freezing temperature of their building’s AC.

He has on a pressed shirt, the one with the too-thin fabric that makes frame look even bonier and slender, and there’s a sopping wet umbrella at his side that tells Soonyoung that the weather outside is _terrible_. Younger Soonyoung would have gone on his knees and asked him to marry him for life at the thoughtfulness; older Soonyoung just cusses Seungcheol out in his head and feels vaguely out-of-sorts.

When Wonwoo catches sight of him, a smile starts to play on his lips, only to falter at the grim set of Soonyoung’s jaw. Soonyoung doesn’t say anything, just waits for Wonwoo to fall into step beside him, and waits for Wonwoo to open the umbrella before moving once more.

“Bad day?” Wonwoo tentatively asks as they wait at the crosswalk.

Soonyoung grunts. Wonwoo looks at him from his side and tilts the umbrella closer to Soonyoung even if the rain’s probably making his shoulder damp by now. Soonyoung stares at the wet spot on Wonwoo’s shirt, feeling a pang of guilt settle at the base of his stomach at the sight; he inches closer until their elbows touch. Their knuckles. Their fingers, intertwined, like they’re in uni all over again and holding hands awkwardly for the first time.

Seven years is a long time to love someone, he thinks. He tightens his hold on Wonwoo’s hand and smiles.

“What do you wanna do for your birthday, old man?” He asks, looking up at Wonwoo.

“I don’t know,” says Wonwoo. “I figured we could just stay home and eat cake together.”

“We can bake one of those pet-friendly birthday cakes together,” says Soonyoung. “I’ll even look up a recipe.”

“What if we burn the apartment down?”

“Then I’ll cash in on your insurance.”

Wonwoo laughs, but looks thoughtful, as if he’s really considering the implications. “My company’s insurance policies only accepts family as beneficiaries,” he says.

Under his gaze, Soonyoung feels small. Shy, even. “What about our cat babies?” He jokes.

“I’ll ask Bohyuk to take care of them, then.”

“What about me?”

“What makes you think you’ll outlive me?”

“I have excellent breathing control and sprightly limbs. You, on the other hand, would just lay around the couch until the firefighters come.”

“I’ll be too busy trying to save the cats, you mean.”

“Well, there’s that,” says Soonyoung. “I’m glad I rank below Yaongie and Nabi in that regard.”

“I’m sure you’ll be the first to cart out Nabi, no matter how much you claim to hate her.”

“It’s Stockholm syndrome. I’ve been cooped up with all of you for too long.”

“You could have been vacationing in the Alps with a wealthy old pervert in another life, but now you’re stuck with us.”

“Don’t make me regret it,” says Soonyoung. “I should have married up when I had the chance instead of just shacking up with _you_.”

“I’m glad you haven’t found anyone to marry yet, then,” says Wonwoo, voice thick as he looks down at Soonyoung. Full of feeling, and yet. And yet. Soonyoung doesn’t know what it is about him that makes it so easy.

“Someone rich, no,” says Soonyoung. He holds out a hand to cradle Wonwoo’s cheek, then tips his head up so he can kiss him, softly. “Just an old pervert that loves me.”

He doesn’t regret it.

*

At least, until Wonwoo’s birthday comes and the bag of flour he’d bought from the grocery gets raided by Nabi, leaving horrific trails of white powder in her wake.

“This is all your fault for distracting me,” Soonyoung bemoans as he wipes down the floor with a wet rag. “I _told_ you we should have put the groceries away first!”

“What was I gonna do, turn the delivery man away?” Wonwoo asks, sounding amused as he leans against the doorframe. “If I remembered right, you enjoyed that package too.”

“We’re returning that chair,” says Soonyoung, scathing. “What if the cats decide to use it as their new favorite spot?”

“I don’t think sex chairs are built that way,” says Wonwoo. He bends to press a wet kiss to Soonyoung’s nape that makes him shiver, and he’s lucky that it’s his birthday or Soonyoung would have shoved him away harder than he does at that moment. “I’ll make something to eat. You can go give Nabi a bath.”

“Why am I stuck with the harder chore?”

“It’s _my_ birthday,” Wonwoo reminds him.

Soonyoung flips him a finger in response.

*

He finds Wonwoo doing the laundry, just as he’s released Nabi out of the bathroom after an exhausting game of escape-from-the-human before her impromptu bath.

“Oh,” says Soonyoung, watching Wonwoo stuff a pair of pants down the dryer, flustered. “Wasn’t it my turn to do the laundry this week?”

“I’m all out of socks,” says Wonwoo. “I figured I could do it all in one go.”

“… what did you do this time?” Soonyoung asks, suspiciously.

“Nothing!” Wonwoo comes closer to rest his palms on Soonyoung’s hips, thumbs stroking the garter of his pajama pants in slow, concentric circles. “Can’t I do nice things for you sometimes?”

“Did you forget to buy trash bags again?” Soonyoung asks, wrinkling his nose as Wonwoo tries to nose at his cheek. “You do know we’re down to the last three bags for food, right?”

“Relax,” says Wonwoo. “It’s in the cabinet under the sink.”

“It better be,” says Soonyoung, and he tiptoes to press his lips in an embarrassingly loud smack against Wonwoo’s forehead as a reward. “Did you remember to take out all the stuff in our pockets before putting everything into the wash?”

“Um.”

“Wonwoo!”

“Why don’t you check if you don’t trust me?”

Soonyoung rolls his eyes, annoyance slightly starting to burn under his skin. The washing machine’s still in the middle of a load, so he jerks away and stomps off to check the dryer instead. “I swear to god,” he says, yanking the lid open, “if I see candy wrappers here again—” He feels around the pockets of a pair of pants, then feels the annoyance transform into a headache. “Wonwoo!”

“What?”

He tugs the pants out of the dryer, then pulls out the offending object. “I _told_ you a hundred times and I’ll say it again, you—”

And then he stops when he pulls out a small golden ring.

He stares, and he stares, and he stares some more until his eyes start to turn wet and his fingers are shaking. Wonwoo steps forward and places his palms over Soonyoung’s hand, keeping it hidden from view, but it just feels heavy on his palm. Scorching.

“Well?” Wonwoo asks, licking his lips. “What do you think?”

“… Did Mingyu ask you to keep a wedding ring for him this time?” He asks, weakly.

“After the last time? Not likely,” Wonwoo snorts. His thumb strokes Soonyoung’s knuckles gingerly, like he’s holding something precious, and when he reaches out to touch the space under Soonyoung’s eyelashes with the side of his fingers and pulls away with his skin wet, glistening, he says, quietly, this time, “I _did_ tell you I checked the pockets now, didn’t I?”

"I hate this,” Soonyoung wails, sniveling now. “Why are you asking me while I smell like sweat and cat shampoo?”

“And fabric conditioner,” says Wonwoo, nosing at his ear. He tucks Soonyoung’s scrunched-up, teary-eyed face into the crook of his neck and shoulder, letting him blubber and cry all over his ratty t-shirt as he holds him. “All the things I love.” Soonyoung snivels some more. “Was that a yes, Kwon Soonyoung?”

“You haven’t even _asked_ properly,” Soonyoung blubbers. “Why are you asking on _your_ birthday?”

“I figured you’d feel bad about rejecting me today,” he jokes. “And if you ever forget our anniversary, at least you can hide it by pretending it was a double deal with my birthday, right?”

“As if I ever forget that kind of stuff,” says Soonyoung, heatedly. Wonwoo’s smile turns strained, faltering, and Soonyoung’s torn between rolling his eyes and kissing him, again and again. “Ask me properly this time, idiot!”

So Wonwoo gets on his knees and does exactly that, getting dirt and detergent on his knees from the mess he’s made in the laundry room. And this time, Soonyoung doesn’t even think about saying no, not even at all.

**Author's Note:**

> the last line is a reference to one of my teenage romcom awakenings, 10 things I hate about you. nostalgia has, admittedly, colored my memories of the film, but the QQs are too good to pass up.
> 
> thank you to the mod for the minibang and to fantasteic@ao3 / lunnarsystem @twitter for elevating this fic into something 100000000x better than the crackfic it is ♥♥♥ you can check out the BEAUTIFUL fanart [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19883788), please leave lots of love :3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [sucker for you - art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19883788) by [fullson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullson/pseuds/fullson)




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